Ok, you know how on occasion you’re watching TV and you slowly doze off only to be woken up in the middle of the night, TV still blurting away in the background and you’re totally dazed as you reluctantly go and turn it off? But I digress, what has this got to do with seeing Interpol at the Hordern Pavilion? Not much really, other than this is how I got into Interpol in the first place, the song was PDA and I woke the next morning with it still playing in my head.Not even 12 months had passed since that fateful wake from my slumber and I was lining up outside of the Hordern, an hour before gates opened ..waiting…and waiting. Well we all know of the adage “well worth the wait” well it was certainly the case in that particular moment in time.
As noted earlier, my introduction to Interpol has been very brief, albeit they have only released 3 CD’s since 2002, but I have noticed that people either like them or they don’t. Their style of song and music tends to polarise people in their opinion of the band, so in a way the people that attended the concert that night “wanted” to be there…and it showed.
The band was amazing, there wasn’t a note played out of tune, very tight and very professional. The sound was spot on and the lighting was not too overbearing and strategically bathed the band in colours of intermittent Blues, Reds, Orange and Yellow, it was almost an interstellar look and feel and complemented the songs very well. Oh and the music, music, music…this is a band that truly lets their music do the talking, no fancy gimmickry, animation or stage props, just brilliant melodies and superb vocals ( Paul Banks is an example of being able to produce an outstanding vocal performance without the requirement of an extensive vocal range or the use of vocal theatrics, he was solid and on the mark the whole night ), a band that was completely in tune with one another and a thoroughly polished unit.
Although Interpol were touring Australia promoting their latest album ‘Our Love To Admire’, they played songs from all three albums, including my subliminal calling song "PDA", which they saved for the last song of the evening.
An absolutely brilliant concert by an equally brilliant band, one that seemed to actually enjoy the crowd and the opportunity in performing for us all.
Oh, and to my two Czech friends that I lost in the crowd on the dance floor “Já doufám že jste měli výbornou noc”
David
